Two weeks to Bridport Open Studios

There's now only two weeks to go before our annual Bridport Open Studios event, which takes place from Saturday 28 to Monday 30 August 2010.

You can now view this PDF of this year's event catalogue, and it's also is available from the Bridport Open Studios page on www.bridport.org

The catalogue contains information about over 100 artists in 46 venues across West Dorset, with an image and short descriptions of their work, along with websites, telephone and email contacts.

We're still in the process of translating this information onto our new website, which you'll soon be able to find at www.bridportopenstudios.co.uk

You're also ALL invited to our launch party at the award-winning Bull Hotel, on East Street, Bridport, from 6-9pm on Thursday 26 August. Come along to have a drink and meet the artists, many of whom will be showing some examples of their works in the magnificent Ball Room. There's also freshly made pizzas and a wide range of pies and cider available from the Bull's new Stable block.

Meanwhile I've been busy working on my latest commission as well as a body of new work I've started in my studio. Last year I spent 8 months working on a commission showing a view from Lewesdon Hill across the Marshwood Vale, and this area of west Dorset has now inspired a whole new series of paintings.

A major source of inspiration has been a winding path that leads through a copice of young trees at the base of the hill, and up past a row of ancient twisted beech trees that are surrounded by bluebells in the spring. Look through these trees out across the panorama from Pilsden Pen to Charmouth Gap, a view that becomes gradually more obscured by leaves as spring turns into summer.

My landscape paintings are all about the feeling and memory of a place. I'm not in the least bit interested in the superficial appearance of a pretty scene, but in the deeper atmosphere and mood that a place evokes. Of course I love this beautiful countryside, the infinite subtleties of light and colour, as the sun begins to set over Pilsden Pen and light cascades through the canopy of entwined branches, but there seems to be a grander idyll, a sense of presence, perhaps of our forebears, and even before them, of forgotten times, somehow recorded in the soil and the rain carved hillsides.

A walk in the countryside offers a connection with nature that is both profound and sublime, and it also deserves to be savoured. Find a leafy bank to sit on, or a tree stump, and just watch the world go by. It's almost as if by relaxing and letting go of the modern world, we remember the part we play in nature, we merge back into the foliage and wildlife, and become invisible, like the hundreds of tiny animals going about their business all around us. This return to nature is something that is available to all of us, at any time, and is something we should all experience, and this is what my paintings are all about.

Of course it's different back in my studio. I sometimes work outside (plein air), but I'm quite happy to work in my studio, and with much of my work it's vital, as I spend weeks building up subtle glazes, rather than simply trying to spontaneously respond to nature. And if you think about it, every painting is really an expression of what the artist sees and feels in their mind. A landscape is always our translation of our perceptions onto canvas. I remember one visitor saying to me that she'd never seen the landscape as I showed it until she saw my paintings. I believe the same is true for all of us, that we see the world around us through the eyes of all the artists in history, we see the drama that Turner saw, the light that Monet saw, and we can find eauty in a clump of weeds because Albrecht Durer first saw it 500 years ago.

I'm hoping to show both finished works and works-in-progress at the Open Studios event, so I look forward to seeing you there.

You can view more of my work at www.kitglaisyer.com